Top 20 Ways to Collaborate With Your Child to Make Beautiful Art

My 3-year-old is now making some pretty wonderful artwork. She is clever, creative, and loves splashing paint and making scribbles! She’s also starting to draw “potato” people and wobbly sunshiney scenes. Despite what the Internet says about over-praising my child, I cheer for every little line she makes.

But my favorite pieces are the ones we create together.

I’ve found that, if I choose which parts of our collaborative projects that I want to control and decide where I let her have free-reign, we can make some beautiful pieces that document our story and celebrate our happy mommy-daughter moments.

So, I’ve scoured the Internet to find my Top 20 Children’s Art Collaborations!

1. Gather found objects and/or cut scraps of paper. Have your child sort them into colors, and paste them into a rainbow. Or, collect all pink and red items, and paste them into a heart shape.
   
2. Cut out bird, circle, or leaf shapes, and have your child color or paint them. Paste them onto tree branches you’ve drawn or traced.
   
3. Let your child paint/draw/color different circles. Draw scalloped edges or swirls around them. Add stems and leaves to make flowers. You can also cut out the circles and layer them on top of each other.
   
4. Cut out a variety of squares and rectangles, on white or colored construction paper. Let your child paint them or color them with markers. Then, draw on basic shapes for windows (rectangles/squares/rounded rectangles). Paste the “buildings” together haphazardly to make a silly city. The buildings can also be hung on string and connected to a dowel, to make a city mobile. Add some magic by cutting out stars and a moon shape.
   
5. Keeping your pen on the page, draw a long line that swirls and overlaps. Have your child color in the shapes you’ve made.
6. Adding to number 5, have your child fill in the shapes with light-colored markers or watercolor paints, so that you can fill the colored shapes with your own doodles or patterns in black ink.
   
7. Draw a jar on a piece of paper. Throughout the month or year, paste in a piece of scrap paper for each day.
   
8. Draw an entire page of simple black flowers or snowflakes. Have your little one paint them with watercolor paints. Encourage them to paint outside the lines and make watermarks and splashes.
   
9. Use stencils to block out part of a piece of paper. Make your own stencils by cutting out a separate piece of paper — a circle, heart, or square. Use washable poster paint to fill in the stencils with multi-colored family handprints.
   
10.  Have your child paint flat, wooden pieces, and paste them onto a thick piece of paper or weathered wood to create a simple mosaic.
    
11. Have your child cut out circles of fabric or foam (rough circles are okay). Glue or sew them in layers of 2-3 pieces to make “flowers.” Sew or glue them to a piece of paper or fabric.
    
12. Section off a piece of paper with colored masking tape or washi tape. Paint or draw in the sections, and remove the tape when you’re done.
    
13. Use cut-out pieces of paper or stencils to block out a section of your page. Let your child paint or color in the white space. Remove the stencil, and doodle or add patterns to the white space.
    
14. Let your child make watercolor blobs on a piece of paper. Turn the shapes into imaginary creatures by adding eyes, fins, ears, etc.
    
15. Paint a simple mountain and sky. Let your child use animal stamps to create a scene and tell a story. Write the story in the sky.
    
16. Use Lego blocks to stamp shapes on paper. Color, collage, or doodle the shapes.
    
17. Using an Exacto knife and a rectangular rubber eraser, carefully carve out building shapes in the eraser. Let your child use the stamps to create a city.
    
18. Create a mosaic masterpiece by drawing a simple outline of a famous work of art, on a poster-size sheet of paper. Cut the paper into squares and have your child color or paint each square. Choose to use colors from the original painting or different colors.
    
19. Take your handprint art to a new level with watercolor or acrylic paint, doodles and stamps.
    
20. Create color-resist art. Trace lettering, doodle, or draw a scene with a white colored pencil or crayon. Let your child paint watercolors over the top and dab the watercolor with a paper-towel to remove color from the white areas.